A dipole antenna for use in radar applications

An antenna 100 comprises: a housing 110 with an opening 111 into a cavity 112, where the cavity 112 contains a planar bow-tie shaped conducting layer 220 formed on, or adjacent, a first surface of a planar substrate 210; an absorbing under layer 230 formed on, or adjacent, a second surface (opposite to the first surface) of the substrate 210; a mechanical protection block 120 between the conductive layer 220 and the cavity opening 111; and an absorber assembly 300 located on the opposite side of the conductive layer 220 from that of the opening 111 and where an absorber layer 310 is located between first and second dielectric layers 320, 330. The conducting layer 220 may be printed on a printed circuit board which is less than 1 mm thick which allows capacitive coupling between the conducting layer 220 and the under layer 230, which may be made of graphite. The absorber assembly 300 may include a plurality of interlayered dielectric and absorber layers. The housing 110 may be made of metal. A balun feed arrangement may be built into the protection block 120. The antenna 100 may be used in a symmetrical dual antenna assembly suitable for many different applications, for example, an excavator bucket ultra-wideband radar sensor.